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Wikipedia Censored To Protect Captive Reporter

Posted by kdawson on from the limits-to-openness dept.

AI writes with a story from the NY Times about a 7-month-long effort, largely successful, to keep news of a Times reporter's kidnapping off of Wikipedia. The Christian Science Monitor, the reporter David Rohde's previous employer, takes a harder look at the issues of censorship and news blackout, linking to several blogs critical of Wikipedia's actions. Rohde escaped from a Taliban compound, along with his translator, on Saturday. "For seven months, The New York Times managed to keep out of the news the fact that one of its reporters, David Rohde, had been kidnapped by the Taliban. But that was pretty straightforward compared with keeping it off Wikipedia. ... A dozen times, user-editors posted word of the kidnapping on Wikipedia's page on Mr. Rohde, only to have it erased. Several times the page was frozen, preventing further editing — a convoluted game of cat-and-mouse that clearly angered the people who were trying to spread the information of the kidnapping... The sanitizing was a team effort, led by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, along with Wikipedia administrators and people at The Times."

2 of 414 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hypocrites by Hawthorne01 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Okay, you got it

    The New York Times gladly hid behind the 1st Amendment and blabbed about a 100% legal, effective and yet secret means to track terrorist money around the globe, yet clammed up when it was their hide on the line.

    Hypocrites.

    --
    "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
  2. Wish the NYT had more concern about non-employees by Alaska+Jack · · Score: 5, Informative

    Obviously, everyone is glad Rodheis home safely. Neverthess, many around the blogosphere have pointed out that the Times has a two-faced approach to this kind of secrecy.

    Take, for example, the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, which the Times did a big expose of back in '06. There were absolutely no questions that this program was

    • Constitutional
    • legal
    • briefed to the appropriate members of congress, and
    • working!

    Yet that didn't stop the Times from announcing to every terrorist from Marrakech to Jakarta all about it, how to avoid getting caught by it, etc.

    Again, there is no dispute that this program was working; in other words, nailing terrorists -> saving civilian lives. Too bad the lives it was saving weren't those of Times employees!

    PS Good overview here, by the guy who led the Justice Department's prosecution against the 1993 World Trade Center bombers.

    - AJ